The Women's Book: Volume 1: Section 2: Chapters 4-7
About this book
In 2018 I released The Women's Vol 1, a comprehensive guide to women's nutrition, muscle gain and fat loss. This is section 2 of that book which includes Chapter 4-7.Chapter 4 first looks at the general types of exercise that can be done as part of an overall program. This includes warming up and cooling down, stretching, aerobic exercise, interval training, sprint training, jumping, resistance training and technical training. In the second part of the chapter, I address the different goals that women might have including general fitness and health (including improving bone mineral density), improving body composition, the physique sports, strength/power sports, endurance sports, high-intensity performance sports and team sports. For each I look at how the different types of training might be included.Chapter 5 examines the type of body composition, which refers to the proportion of total body weight that is made up of different types of tissues such as body fat, muscle, bones, organs and others. Focusing primarily on body fat and muscle mass, I examine what purpose they serve in the body along with the issue of what is being lost or gained when body weight changes.In Chapter 6 I examine the different methods of measuring and tracking changes in body composition. First I look at true body composition measurement methods such as the body-mass index (BMI), the tape measure, waist-hip ratio (WHR), calipers and other higher tech methods of measuring body composition. I also examine other tracking methods that don't technically measure body composition. This includes the scale, the mirror and pictures, tape measure, and others. I then discuss how any given woman might choose one or multiple methods for their goals. A discussion of different goals for body fat percentage are examined followed by the definition of my diet categories; these are used later in the book for various aspects of diet setup. Finally I example the issue of how the menstrual cycle can impact on tracking changes and how best to address it.Chapter 7 examines how body composition can be altered. First I examine the different global approaches of either losing fat or gaining muscle and how they can realistically impact on a woman's body fat percentage. This is followed by specific sections examining some of the physiology of how muscle and fat are either gained or lost along with why any given woman might choose to gain or lose one or the other. Since fat loss tends to be a more common goal for women, much of the focus of this chapter is on that topic. I also look at the different types/areas that a woman has in terms of how easy or difficult it is to gain or lose fat in those areas.The references section includes the scientific and other literature that the previous chapter draws on for those who may wish to delve more deeply.